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Thursday, July 9, 2015

Following BestWater C-348/13 preliminary reference, the German Federal Supreme Court today decided that the framing of a third party content does not amount to copyright infringement in the situations when the content was authorized on the source. The Court, however, explicitly left open what happens if the source is not authorized, referring to the pending CJEU case of GS Media C-160/15 (although its reading seems to be that such constellation would lead to an infringement). So far, only the press release is available.

Interestingly enough, the Court also seem to have considered the question I posed on this blog just after BestWater decision was handed by the CJEU. Namely, may the German court provide for exclusive rights beyond the European Union law? The German Federal Supreme Court seems to think it may not. Here is what the PR says:

"Such a link, in the view of Article 3 para. 1 of Directive 2001/29/EC and the required Union-conform interpretation, also does not infringe any unnamed exploitation right of public communication based on § 15 Abs. 2 German Copyright Act ."

This could (we need to see the full text first) mean the German Federal Supreme Court is reading the second part of the Svensson ruling as pre-empting extension of such national exploitation rights; the reading that I advocated several times on this blog.

About Me

Martin Husovec is a Slovak-born lawyer & academic

researching on innovation and digital liberties, in particular, regulation of intellectual property and freedom of expression. He is an Assistant Professor at the Tilburg University (appointed jointly by Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society & Tilburg Law and Economics Center), Affiliate Scholar at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society (CIS), and Advisor for a think-tank European Information Society Institute (EISi).